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Certain sounds predictably light up my brain’s pleasure receptors—a singer’s voice almost breaking, a somber synth melody, autumnal cycling guitars a la my favorite emo albums. I couldn’t have anticipated obsessing over “My Stance,” a standout track from Back 2 Ballin, the debut full-length mixtape by local rapper Adamn Killa. A rapper rhyming “you” with “poo-poo” and “doo-doo” over a sample of Russian pop duo T.a.t.u.’s 2002 breakout single “All the Things She Said” doesn’t scream “play this over and over again,” at least not on paper....

Thirty-six years ago, when I moved to Chicago, the old lefties used to tell me the political and corporate chieftains were like a secret cartel that had crafted a rich-get-richer scheme of development that would shape the city for years to come. I’ll give old man Daley and his pals this: They were reacting to demographic challenges far greater than those Rahm or Rauner must confront. In the early 1970s, the middle class was picking up and fleeing to the suburbs as the city’s industrial base was crumbling....

Shy Technology call Chicago home, but their music is spiritually in sync with a type of melancholic and massive indie rock I’ve come to associate with Scotland; if front man David Coulson sang with a brogue I might have taken the band for Edinburgh four-piece We Were Promised Jetpacks. On their recent single “Crazy Kind” and their three-song EP, Fine Print (both on New Black Market), Shy Technology carve out soundscapes that are smooth and frictionless until they climax with the violence of waves crashing upon craggy seaside boulders....

Among the more embarrassing displays of Second City syndrome is the desperate thirst for a Chicago “celebrity culture,” especially local media outlets’ relentless quest to frame the city as “star-powered.” This manifests in lame party coverage—from store openings attended by a few self-mythologizing fashion bloggers and an errant Bulls player to fund-raising galas catering to North Shore socialites, dutifully emceed by Bill Kurtis—as well as secondhand reporting about literally anything any remotely Chicago-related famous person says, wears, eats, or tweets....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, August 10, 2016. Chicago Teachers Union threatens to strike over new CPS budget The Chicago Teachers Union is threatening to strike over the Chicago Public Schools newly released 2017 budget. CTU president Karen Lewis told reporters that union members won’t go another year with a contract, but she hasn’t set a date for a possible strike. “We do not know if Mayor Emanuel can stand another teachers’ strike, especially at a time when confidence in his leadership is at an all-time low and the city is in an uproar over another police shooting of an unarmed African-American youth,” Lewis said....

Tone Glow became a must-read for experimental-music fans not long after editor Joshua Minsoo Kim (who’s also a Reader contributor) began publishing it as a blog in 2015, and since December 2019 it’s been an excellent online newsletter focusing on interviews and reviews. Even when Tone Glow writers talk to relatively familiar figures such as Shirley Collins, Jim O’Rourke, Young Marble Giants, and Annea Lockwood, their deep research and insightful questions make the conversations fresh and fascinating....

Fed up with the Cook County Board of Commissioners? Looking for a way to stick it to them? If you happen to live in the county’s weirdly gerrymandered Third District, you’ll have an opportunity in the fall election to present that august body with its biggest nightmare: “Chicago’s most concerned citizen,” George Blakemore. Bill Lowry, the winner among seven Democratic candidates for the same seat, got about 16,600 votes. The seat’s being vacated by the retirement of former A-list soul singer and 33-year commissioner Jerry “Iceman” Butler....

We here at the Reader have made no secret of our deep and abiding love for the Chicago Humanities Fest. Our biggest complaint, besides being forced to choose which events to go to instead of just getting to go to them all, is that the festival comes but once a year. Well, OK, that’s not entirely true: for the past few years, the CHF crew has stealthily been scheduling individual events throughout the winter and spring....

Local hardcore trio Warrior Tribes headline a show at Quenchers on Sunday, April 3, hot on the heels of their brand-new self-titled seven-inch EP. Warrior Tribes add an eerie, unsettling touch of the Wipers’ sound to their 90-second blasts of hardcore punk, making them just as creepy and heavy as they are fast and mean. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Iron Fist,” the EP’s closer. At two minutes and 30 seconds, it’s a massive epic compared to the record’s other songs, and the band give finesse and depth to its simplicity, speed, and fury....

As this wretched excuse for a presidential election staggers to an end, the time has come for me to tally up the costs—both political and financial—of Donald Trump’s candidacy for Republicans in Illinois. Before I dive in, a word or two on behalf of Trump. Yes, yes, get ready—I’m about to say something sort of nice about the Donald. Proft is a political strategist and conservative talk show host who’s emerged as Rauner’s go-to-guy running key elections across the state....

When the Black Lives Matter and other social justice uprisings hit Chicago last year, the creators at Soft Cage Films were ready. The nonprofit film production company has been documenting social change, combating oppressive systems, and amplifying underrepresented voices of color in film through experimental techniques, artistic collaboration, and engaging storylines since its founding in 2012. Building off that collective energy, Soft Cage ramped up full speed, launching two new film initiatives that created needed virtual spaces to challenge oppressive systems, like gender and racial discrimination, police brutality, and health-care access for people of color, which could not have been more fitting in a year where everything got turned upside down....

Michael Gebert This rented stuffed bear is looking forward to Intro’s in-house Fourth of July picnic. The solstice has passed, and by the ancient laws of the mysterious Druid sect that really runs our food scene, that means the season of outdoor events featuring celebrated chefs, beer, and sunshine has officially begun. There are some coming up in the near future you should know about, starting this Thursday with Chefs and the City, a benefit for Heartland Health Outreach, which helps Chicagoans living with AIDS/HIV live better lives....

Asked what her job at the company (whose annual operating budget for their two-venue space on North Clark comes in at just under $1 million) might entail during the COVID shutdown, Gray says, “I think that there is definitely an incredibly interesting discussion that a lot of theaters can be having about what is theater right now? How can we be making something that resembles what we used to make in a small room with people gathered close together?...

UPDATE Thursday, March 12: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. The entire cast is terrific, but ultimately it’s the mother-daughter relationship that resonates strongest here. Alvarez and Rodriguez bring bruising anger and galvanizing grace to their performances. It may well make you weep. v Through 3/21: Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $20-$30, $15 students.

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, February 12, 2016. Have a great weekend! Rent Vincent Van Gogh’s bedroom on Airbnb To promote the new “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms” exhibit, the Art Institute has re-created the artist’s bedroom, as depicted in the famous paintings, in a River North apartment that’s available to rent on Airbnb. The dates are filling up quickly, so if you don’t get a chance to stay—it’s only $10 per night—the museum has also built a replica for the exhibit....

Denver-born, New York-based MC and producer Deca wallows gleefully in the loopy psychedelic end of hip-hop. His past records have owed debts to the Native Tongues collective (groups who were part of it, including De la Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, get frequent shout-outs), but Deca’s 2018 instrumental album Flux (Beulah) draws equally on loungey trip-hop. Some tracks feel like they could be outtakes from classic Dan the Automator records: On “Space Dust” Deca combines laid-back beats, drifting horn samples, and corny inspirational snippets of announcements and dialogue into an ode to expanded chemical and spiritual consciousness....

I was ready to be a little disappointed when I arrived at the Harris Theater for the Mark Morris Dance Group’s performance of Dido and Aeneas last night. There’s nothing uninteresting about Laurel Lynch, who has both lead parts. Statuesque and fluidly expressive, she’s a compelling stage presence—whether as Dido, the angular and elegant Queen of Carthage, or her jittery antithesis, the evil Sorceress. And, if you have a taste for Baroque music, this genre-blending mash-up is a multisensory treat....

A friend I eat with a lot likes to press his nose up against every menu and scan for typos. When he finds one, it’s like a rancid amuse-bouche that he’s thrilled to alert his server to. But when a menu misspells prosciutto—and menus often do—it’s even worse, like he found a fly in his soup. The mistake colors his experience with a bilious yellow filter of lowered expectations. The latter’s run by chef Austin Fausett, a newcomer late of Proof in Washington, D....

A TV show that begs to be hate-watched isn’t, by definition, a “bad” show. The most glaring example is Girls, a “good” show that’s nearly impossible to view through any lens other than unfiltered contempt—its quartet of fairly loathsome Brooklyn gentrifiers, moving messily through their 20s, are subtly exaggerated caricatures that are meant to simultaneously represent and critique their demographic. But Girls is addictive because of the surface-level familiarity of the setting and styling, enough so I’ll clench my jaw while watching a very specific subset of upwardly mobile urban “creatives” behave noxiously....

Courtesy Ghastly Menace Ghastly Menace Ghastly Menace has tripled. Four years ago, the band was just Andy Schroeder and Chris Geick, two former posthardcore musicians that got together to play pop. Now, the psychedelic outfit has six members. A rotating cast of characters simmered down to a steady lineup during the recording of the band’s debut album, Songs of Ghastly Menace, which came out on Tuesday via The Record Machine....